Metropolis Noir
by Addicted to Antics
Summary: A dark Rei-centric AU in a very 1984-esqe world set to the strings of a quivering violin. For the SMMFC prompt, Bad Day.


_Metropolis Noir_

**A/N:** This is from a prompt on SMMFC on livejournal. In case you're wondering, the prompt is Bad Day, and it's Rei-centric.

**Rating:** Straight up R.

**Disclaimer:** Don't own SM. Takeuchi-sensei does. And the song "Center of the Sun" by Conjure One features prominently in this, even though I don't like songfics. Listen to it while reading this, it really sets the mood.

* * *

_Young girl in the market  
Music to the men  
When the men leave  
Her eyes are red  
When her eyes are closed again she sees the dark market of above_

Rei stumbles through the street, all too cognizant of the flames and chaos burning around her body, her physical being. She grasps a wound in her abdomen and shudders when the blood, steely and black, seeps through her shaking, charred fingers. She shouldn't be able to feel, shouldn't be able to cry. But she is able, and she does...

A soundless flash tosses her body several feet away and into a metallic structure. It is probably a warehouse, she notes; an anarchist's haven, no doubt.

A man leans over her, and as she lamely lifts an arm to wave him away from her, he injects a vial of some horrible, raven mixture into her cold skin. She trembles, her eyes shutting, though she mentally fights the drug.

'Perhaps,' she thinks, 'I should be thankful that I won't be awake this time.'

_And she sings  
'They say the most horrible things  
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes  
I am at the center of the sun  
And I cannot be hurt  
By anything this wicked world has done'_

It is her birthday, and she wears a beautiful gown woven from the finest Venutian silk. Little casablanca lilies trail the pathway to the gazebo in which her masked savior waits.

It could be Christmas or the New Year or Yom Kippur or the Judgment Day. She doesn't quite know.

She follows the ivory petals, almost tiptoeing over the stone pathway as to not wake the merfolk living underneath the lilypads in the shallow pond surrounding the stepping stones. The white gazebo, roof glistening in the sunlight, seems to float away as she leaps on her toes toward it.

_Young boy in the market  
Follows all the men  
When the men leave  
He's out of his head  
When his eyes are closed again he sees the dark market of above_

Her eyes open, and she wears nothing but a plain, gray flightsuit. The pistol lies a few inches from her fingers, and as she tries to reach for it, she realizes her body is still.

Her captor must have turned her physical functions off. She internally laughs a dark, bloodstained laugh. Rape is much easier to commit when the cyborg woman can't beat the **** out of the assaulter.

A young face peers over her face. His clear gray eyes stun her.

"I saw what those men did to you, Miss."

Rei actually pities him.

_And he sings  
'They break the most beautiful things  
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes  
I am at the center of the sun  
And I cannot be hurt  
By anything this wicked world has done  
I look into your eyes  
And I am at the center of the sun  
And I cannot be hurt  
By anything this wicked world has done'_

She runs and darts and reaches for the entrance until she pants from exhaustion. The sun's rays, stronger by the second, burn her pale skin. She cries out as the sensation scintillates her past the brink of tolerance.

Her savior, blue curls streaming in the breeze, frowns at her and picks up a brown violin.

Rei stops, curious, until she sees the bow hanging limply from her hand.

"Bring it to me," the feminine voice murmurs, a part of the wind dancing in her ebony tresses.

_Young boy in the market  
Sees the girl alone  
And asks her  
'Have you lost your way home?'  
She sings  
'You say the most beautiful things, just like my violins'_

"I'll turn you on, if you tell me how."

Rei feels a tear drip down her cheek and into her mouth. She wants to vomit, the tear tastes so much like oil. It isn't real, it is artificial. It is a lie.

She can't move, can't even blink away the lie-tear. All she wants to do is to tell the clear-eyed boy to run, to leave, to get out. And to never think of her and what he had seen ever again.

Not deterred by her silence, he fingers a spot just behind her ear after studying it for a moment. Cursing to herself, she sits up.

"What is your serial, kid?" her harsh voice, metallic in every dimension, barks.

He stares into her purple eyes, and she reaches for the pistol.

"28371839."

_I look into your eyes  
I am at the center of the sun  
And I cannot be hurt  
By anything this wicked world has done_

"Stroke my violin's strings, Rei," Michiru whispers, her cold, calculating eyes peering through the mask.

Rei reaches out with the bow and falters. The screech sends a shiver down her spine, and Michiru smiles.

"For someone trained to kill with utmost precision, the simple motion of a bow to the strings of a violin doesn't compute. I always told Haruka that they needed to train the droids a bit in the arts."

_'Cause  
I hear violins  
I hear violins_

The boy's body archs until it slams against the cold floor, and Rei stares at the crimson liquid flowing from his chest with interest. She examines the dried blood on her abdomen and frowns. Thrusting the pistol against the wound, she smiles as the blood begins to resurface, but quickly inhales as the black substance drips onto her trousers and boots.

She kneels beside the boy and feels her joints creak as she presses two ivory fingers against his chest. The red contrasts so drastically with the black.

Rei stands up, leaving Number 28371839 to the rats.

A second, black tear slides down the contours of her face as she marches to the melody of a distant dream.

_Center of the sun  
I hear... violins._

"Who do we serve, Rei?" the sweet, sticky voice asks quietly as Michiru draws the girl into her arms.

"Mother."

"And why, Rei?"

Rei feels something inside of her twitch; for a moment, she sees a flash of an interrogation cell. The flourescent light illuminates several... specialists.

But with a stroke of Michiru's violin, the woman brings Rei back to the gazebo.

"And why, R-31?"

The voice, no longer sugary and kind, is most stale and sober.

"I... don't know..."

The lights flash on. Michiru, in a white lab coat, signals something to one of the specialists behind Rei. "Perhaps there is indeed an expiration date on your kind," the woman mutters distastefully.

"Michiru..."

The blue-haired woman allows her eyes to glance back at the outdated specimen. "What?" she snaps.

"That boy... he saved me."

The scientist rubs her eyes and signals for her assistants to hurry. "Oh really, R-31? And what makes you think he would do that?" she inquired sarcastically.

This, Rei knows. "He was human."

"Humanity is a dying cause, R-31. I had hoped you would have learned that by now. Oh well."

Footsteps click against the linoleum tiles and Rei stares at the off-white wall until a sharp pain in her neck precedes a calm blanket of black.

* * *

Don't ask me what I'm smoking, I have no clue. :]


End file.
